Hi everyone,
We're now into month 3 of our stay in Grenada. We were expecting to have hurricanes passing by but the Saharan dust is keeping them from developing. As a result it's been mostly dry but very humid with little wind. Not very comfortable, but that's hurricane/cyclone seasons for you! No doubt the hurricane season will start up soon!
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| Huzzah for the steel band! |
Last weekend was Grenada's Carnival. What a blast that was - the music literally shook the boat in her pen. It was a great spectacle which ran over 4 days. Sadly the steel bands which presumably used to dominate the music are now almost entirely gone. Each truck-hauled 'float' packed rock concert style speakers, topped and followed by spectacularly dressed masqueraders.
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| Noise Approaching! |
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| Rockin! |
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| Dancing along |
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| Masqueraders |
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| Girls and Boys |
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| Strange masqueraders |
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| Don't ask me! |
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| Well oiled |
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| Everyone had a blast! |
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| Keep on drummin' |
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| With the sv Ceruleans |
Yesterday we took a tour of the island with the sv Ceruleans and other cruiser friends. It was a busy day in which we circumnavigated the island with tour guide Cutty. Highlights were a caldera lake, a monkey encounter, the Seven Sisters waterfall, lunch in Grenville, a disused airfield, the River Antoine distillery, Welcome Rock on the northern tip of the island and the Petite Anse hotel.
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| One of Grenada's main reservoirs - a natural caldera lake |
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| Friendly Mona monkey |
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| Into the jungle |
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| Spectacular track-side flowers |
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| Negotiating the muddy slopes |
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| Two of the Seven Sisters waterfalls |
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| Cooling off |
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| Heading back out |
The disused airfield is now a drag-racing strip. When the US 'invaded' Grenada a Cuban Airlines AN-27 passenger aircraft was on the ground. It never left, and nor did the Grenadian PMs aircraft.
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| Abandoned aircraft at disused airport |
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| Cuban Airlines AN-27 Cockpit |
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| AN-27 Turboprop engine |
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| Ex-propeller |
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| AN-27 interior |
The River Antoine distillery has been operating for over 200 years. It still uses the original water wheel installed in 1795. It looks dilapidated but is still producing rum.
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| 1795 distillery water wheel |
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| Rum Vats |
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| Rum Basins |
Welcome Rock is a spectacular viewing point on the northern tip of the island. Getting there involves a short climb up a _very_ steep hill. It's worth it.
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| Welcome Rock view |
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| Welcome Rock crew |
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| And back down the hill we came |
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| View from the very nice Petite Anse Hotel |
Aboard Zen Again the pace of boat jobs has been slow but steady. We received our first shipment of goodies from the US by ship via a warehouse in Miami. This allowed us to order all sorts of goods from Amazon US and elsewhere. Our goods were consolidated into a container and shipped from Miami to St George's. Our goodies included:
- An Apple Mac Mini M1 to replace our Macbook Air with broken screen
- Replacement water-proof cases for our phones and tablets
- Replacement silicon cookware
We used
Portage to manage the shipping and import. They're also
here (on Facebook). We have a second shipment currently enroute.
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| At home on G Jetty in Port Louis Marina |
The Mac Mini's M1 processor consumes far less power than the Intel processors on our Macbooks. So our
SignalK instrumentation system now runs 24/7 on the Mini.
Trust all's well where you are!
